Paulina Mellado's Immersive Installation at MAC Santiago

Paulina Mellado's exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) in Santiago presents an immersive installation that transforms the gallery into a speculative environment reflecting on the future of nature in the Anthropocene. Mellado, whose practice began with nest-like sculptures constructed from twigs, fibers, and hair, has evolved toward large-scale, spatially enveloping works that combine sculpture, installation, and painting. The exhibition features fountains, aquariums, panels, and interventions that together form a continuous, cave-like territory, inviting viewers to experience a world in crisis. The artist's work is framed as a response to environmental upheaval, where the landscape is no longer a distant, photographic subject but a hyper-accelerated, immersive force. Drawing parallels to J.M.W. Turner's turbulent paintings, Mellado's installation suggests that the future landscape is an infinite storm, and that immersive proximity is the only possible perspective. The exhibition is conceived as a material continuum, a place akin to a forest or the interior of a cloud, where sensory experience and intellect complement each other. Mellado's practice is described as 'touching the landscape,' and this installation offers a sensory encounter with a future nature, rooted in scientific-speculative environmental thinking.